Greyparrot joins a SXSW 2025 panel on AI and the circular economy featuring industry leaders in recycling, material science and climate action.
-----
Amid rapidly-evolving US climate policy, ongoing plastics treaty negotiations and the global spread of extended producer responsibility (EPR), it’s no surprise that circularity was on the agenda at SXSW (South by Southwest) A global conference and festival in Austin, Texas, celebrating the intersection of tech, film, business, and music, bringing together creatives and pioneering leaders who are shaping culture.
Our co-founder Ambarish Mitra was in Austin to explain how AI waste analytics is filling the post-consumption blind spot that stands in the way of true circularity.
Together with experts from Greyparrot partners Dow and Van Dyk Recycling Solutions, Ambarish separated circularity fact from fiction at one of the world’s biggest gatherings of thinkers, leaders, academics and artists.
Keep reading to learn about the circularity hurdles we’re targeting with AI, or head straight to the on-demand recording to find out how we’re doing it.
The reality of recycling
Despite saving an estimated 700 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year, the realities of recycling are still unclear to many outside of the waste management sector. Panel chair Dr. David McCauley — a specialist in climate policy and sustainable development — led the discussion with a pressing question:
Is circularity an illusion, or is it real? Are we actually creating a closed-loop, circular economy?”
— Dr. David McCauley, Advisor, Climate Investment Funds. (Ex-SVP of WWF, World Wildlife Fund)
For Ambarish, the answer was clear: even without sustainability targets, materials are being recycled because they are “assets with financial value.”
Pieter Van Dijk is the President of Van Dyk Recycling Solutions, one of North America’s largest plant builders. As a front-line supplier for materials recovery facilities, he’s seen the value Ambarish mentioned firsthand:
PET is $340 a tonne. Natural PE, like milk jugs, is $2000 a tonne. These things are not being thrown away.”
– Pieter Van Dijk, President at Van Dyk Recycling Solutions
Dow Chemical’s Global Sustainability Director Haley Lowry noted that a combination of value and environmental pressures means demand for circular products continues to grow:
I spend most of my time working on circularity and decarbonisation — that’s what the world is asking for. The market wants more circular and low carbon products.”
– Haley Lowry, Global Sustainability Director at Dow
Why complexity stands in the way of circularity
Recycling is taking place, and there are both financial and environmental incentives to recover more resources. With that said, the complexity of waste management means that there’s still plenty of work to be done before circular loops are closed.
Lowry acknowledged the scale of the recycling challenge, but stressed that it remains essential:
There are 9,000 different recycling systems in the US, half of the country doesn’t even have access to recycling today. That’s a huge problem, but we need to participate in the recycling infrastructure, or we’re giving up on a system that’s working and improving.”
– Haley Lowry, Global Sustainability Director at Dow
“Improving” for recyclers today means extracting more value from waste, navigating an uncertain regulatory landscape and facing higher operational costs. They are often forced to rely on manual processes to monitor valuable material, remain compliant and maintain healthy margins:
Today’s recycling infrastructure is mechanical and human intensive. The volume of waste is so big — and growing things aren’t as homogenous as they used to be.”
– Ambarish Mitra, Co-founder at Greyparrot
Pieter, who now embeds Greyparrot Analyzer technology in his customers’ facilities, distilled the need for clarity in deceptively simple terms:
Recyclers want two things: to recover as much material as possible, and to keep product purity as high as possible. Currently, they find out whether quality is high enough after it’s too late, when bales get rejected. We now have AI that can tell us what’s in each of those batches before they go out.”
– Pieter Van Dijk, President at Van Dyk Recycling Solutions
The need for systemic change
While AI is transforming recovery facility operations, Ambarish noted that true circularity will rely on action throughout the waste ecosystem — from recyclers to brands and consumers:
Even if technology has all the answers, the whole value chain has to innovate - will brands make more mono-material products? Will consumers make more conscious choices when it comes to reuse?”
– Ambarish Mitra, Co-founder at Greyparrot
Pieter noted that there is already a growing desire to embrace circularity at the top of the value chain:
A lot of companies want to do the right thing. Today, 50% of the tests we do in our testing facility are for manufacturers of products that want to make sure new products are recyclable.”
– Pieter van Dijk, President at Van Dyk Recycling Solutions
Haley has also seen encouraging signs from producers, but all three speakers agreed that widespread circularity will rely on concrete regulatory incentives:
We’ve seen companies saying they want more recycled content but voluntary actions are no longer enough. We need regulatory support to drive demand [for recyclates], whether that’s recycled content mandates or EPR.”
– Haley Lowry, Global Sustainability Director at Dow
Clearly, the circularity illusion is the idea that the waste sector can close the loop without the support of the entire value chain.
Why AI is key to closing the loop
While they can’t close the loop on their own, recyclers will need to lead the circular transition.
The waste processed in recovery facilities around the world has the potential to act as a feedback loop for brands, regulators and consumers that don’t currently know what happens to their resources.
To create that feedback loop, recyclers first need to turn masses of material into actionable data. Without automation, that’s a daunting task:
It’s very easy to simplify waste, but we live in a complex society with complex supply chains … the recycling industry gets criticised but they are dealing with chaos. AI was designed for this, to organise chaos into an understandable format.”
– Ambarish Mitra, Co-founder at Greyparrot
When that “chaos” is organised with waste intelligence, a path forward for packaging recyclability, waste policy and resource recovery comes into sharp focus — and circularity becomes more reality than illusion.
Watch the full conversation on-demand to learn how Pieter, Haley and the wider resource value chain are using AI waste analytics to overcome complexity, encourage collaboration and accelerate circularity:
